"Your Silence Will Not Protect You" ~ Audre Lorde

Codepink

“Listen to me! I am a well-meaning idiot and have many important things to say and I must say them at the top of my lungs!”

Wherever the president goes the sideshow follows. Vendors set up tables to hawk their t-shirts and buttons. The press descends on the place hoping for a juicy quote, an off-guard mistake and even to cover what he says. If it’s a public event, people make plans to come hear and see the president in hopes they might get close enough to snap a picture and maybe even shake his hand if he ventures near the crowd.

Other folks get excited too. These are the professional protestors whose calling in life is appearing where politicians, CEO, celebrities and other famous people can be found so they can yell loudly, wave banners, and call undue attention to themselves. President Obama has faced his share of heckling coming from this critics on the Right, but he gets it in the ear from what passes as the lunatic fringe of the Left too. During his national security speech on Thursday, Obama came face-to-face with one Madea Benjamin, a founder of the anti-war activist group Code Pinkinterrupted the president several times before she was hustled out of the building.

Toward the end of Obama’s address, a woman identified in the White House pool report as Medea Benjamin, the co-founder of the anti-war organization Code Pink, implored the president to close the Guantanamo Bay prison and otherwise criticized his foreign policy.

Through three separate episodes, the president traded words with the woman, asking her to let him finish and succeeding — at least momentarily — twice.

“Why don’t you sit down, and I will tell you exactly what I’m going to do,” Obama said, ending their first exchange. “Thank you, ma’am.”

But soon, Benjamin was back, apparently not happy with Obama’s comments about sending detainees to other countries, pleading with him to “release them today.” She was again quieted, and Obama even acknowledged her opinion was valid.

Tickled pink (Sorry. Couldn’t resist) Benjamin rushed to celebrate her little stunt plastering the web with a series of self-congratulatory stories, including “Medea Benjamin Calls President to Account” By Medea Benjamin if there was any question who deserved the credit.

Like most zealots, Benjamin believes completely in the righteousness of her mission and is repulsively self-righteous in how obnoxious she is in shoving it in everyone’s face.

While I have received a deluge of support, there are others, including journalists, who have called me “rude.” But terrorizing villages with Hellfire missiles that vaporize innocent people is rude. Violating the sovereignty of nations like Pakistan is rude. Keeping 86 prisoners in Guantanamo long after they have been cleared for release is rude. Shoving feeding tubes down prisoners’ throats instead of giving them justice is certainly rude.

At one point during his speech, President Obama said that the deaths of innocent people from the drone attacks will haunt him as long as he lives. But he is still unwilling to acknowledge those deaths, apologize to the families, or compensate them. In Afghanistan, the US military has a policy of compensating the families of victims who they killed or wounded by mistake. It is not always done, and many families refuse to take the money, but at least it represents some accounting for taking the lives of innocent people. Why can’t the President set up a similar policy when drone strikes are used in countries with which we are not at war?

Benjamin makes some valid arguments, but can’t she find a way to make them without screeching like a cat with it’s nuts snagged on a fence? Yelling at the president isn’t speaking truth to power. It’s only publicly making an ass of yourself like getting drunk and urinating in public.

Madea’s Big Happy Protest Parties are all-purpose. Here she is fighting for her right to dance at the Jefferson Memorial. Why does anyone want to dance at the Jefferson Memorial? Aren’t there all sorts of clubs, ballrooms, country bars and living rooms for that sort of thing? Of course there is, but the right of the people to shuffle around like zombies with tired feet shall not be abridged by a capitalist running dog lackey.

I grew up with Martin Luther King and the Freedom Riders marching for their civil rights and catching hell. I was around in 1968 when college students took to the streets to protest the Vietnam War and drive Tricky Dick Nixon insane. I saw the Black Panthers strut around in public with loaded rifles daring the cops to start something. You think I’m impressed by some ditz in pink flitting around like the world’s oldest fairy princess acting like a diva because she can’t twitch like a spastic at a national monument? Is this what passes for the Left in this country has been reduced to? Protest cabaret?

Welcome to the full-time malcotent. George Bush had Cindy Sheehan (and a guy who tossed a shoe at him) and Obama has Madea’s Big Dumb Publicity Stunt, but while this isn’t a Tyler Perry production it is another bad comedy. This woman is a dunce who is impossible to take seriously and her clown act only serves to lessen the chance her causes will be taken seriously either.

Protestin’ ain’t easy. At least not the way dummies like Mad Madea do it. She doesn’t just give activism a bad name. She makes it a bad joke. Madea may actually be sincere in her beliefs, but the way she chooses to express them to the world is by acting out like a spoiled brat thrashing around on the dirty floor of a Wal-Mart embarrassing themselves.